Pakistan is deficient in edible oils despite being an
agricultural country. Its domestic production hardly meets over 25 per cent of
country's requirement. Shortage of edible oils has been afflicting Pakistan's
resources for the last 30 years with little hope for creating a base for
sustained increase in local production. The country is self-sufficient in
certain food commodities of daily use, but the shortage of edible oil is a
serious problem. It has been assumed that due to increase in the rapid
population growth, the demand for edible oil has been continuously increasing
somewhat at the rate of nearly 7-8 per cent per annum. Edible oil imports
increased by 16 times during the last two decades, showing annual growth rate of
13 per cent. Import bill has increased from 135 million in 1970-71 to 15.2
billion in 1992-93.Annual per capita consumption of fats and oils increased from
3.3 to 19.2 kg during the same period. Presently, indigenous varieties of
rapeseed and mustard are not being used in the manufacturing vegetable oil as
they contain high level of glucosinolate and erucic acid, which are considered
harmful to human health. And suspected of causing heart damage. Canola is an
improved variety of conventional rapeseed variety and oil extracted from canola
fresh of pungency, eruoic acid and glucosinate, cholesterol has the lowest
percentage of saturated fats (4%) and has very high level of unsaturated fats
(96%). Since 1970, the accumulating deficit which went on building up at the
rate of about 12 per cent reached 1.1 million tons by 1995 costing over Rs. 30
billion per year. In 1997, Pakistan imported 1.6 million tons of edible oils
(palm oil and soybean) for its population placing import of this commodity
second in order of magnitude after petroleum in the country. On the other hand,
the local production in the country is still far behind the demand of the
population. And only 400,000 tons are produced indigenously. A staggering figure
of Rs 33 billion is spent on the import of this item only. Local production of
edible Oils comes mostly from its traditional sources, namely cottonseed,
rapeseed, mustard, sesame, groundnut, linseed and non-traditional oilseeds
namely sunflower, safflower and soybean. More recently, canola as a
nontraditional oil crop has made its appearance on the scene and is expected to
become an important edible oil-yielding crop. An oilseed crop of an exotic
species of Brasslca napus commonly known as 'canola' is the name given by
the trade to the type of sarson with improved edible oil and meal quality has
been introduced for cultivation in the different provinces of Pakistan to gain
production in edible oil. The last three years introduction campaign by the
government, agencies has helped familiarization of the crop and the product
amongst farming community and for Pakistan Oilseed Development Board has to help
the agencies in spreading awareness in rural areas about the importance and
profitability of the canola cultivation.

The cultivation of canola is very common in all the provinces
and it has been reported that this crop has been under cultivation on about
325,000 acres of land with the production of 129000 tons of seeds in the year
1996-97. The break up for the canola cultivation areas is as 200,000 acres in
Punjab, 50,000 acres in Sindh, 30,000 acres each in NWFP and Balochistan.
Following the development of canola varieties primarily in Europe and Canada,
its cultivation was to quick. The introduction of canola for cultivation in
Pakistan has been quite slow. Canola has better prospects of cultivation partly
as replacement (30-40%) of the existing acreage under traditional rape and
mustard varieties as well as an inter crop with cotton, sugarcane and wheat.
It's easier cultivation methods no risks from bird damage, simpler harvesting
and threshing operations lower competition from other crops and suitability for
local crushing through Mechanical expellers are advantage of this crop. Canola
oil is odorless, ideal for cooking, frying and backing. It is 100 per cent safe
with negligible cholesterol. It is better than the other non-traditional oils,
because of its very low erucic acid and saturated fat level. Its saturated fat
level and sulfur compounds are 6% as compared to 11% of sunflower and 13% of
corn oil. The oil and meal quality of canola have been so changed through
breeding that oil compares with sunflower oil nutritionally and the meal is as
good as soybean and sunflower meal.

It has been reported that the cultivation of canola has
behaved differently in different areas, because of variable environmental
factors such as soils, irrigation, fertilizer application, sowing date etc. It
can be grown on all kinds of land, except extremely sandy and saline stress.
Water and fertilizer requirements are limited which makes it more attractive to
cultivators. Its easier cultivation method, no risks from bird damage, simpler
harvesting and threshing operations, lower competition from other crops,
suitability for local crushing through mechanical expellers and usage at home
scale are advantages of this crop. Thus it may be remarked that canola would
have a better future than sunflower crop under the present circumstances.